SideLines: Nice work if you can get it

With graduation approaching, it may be time for graduates to consider what career they would like to pursue.

There are, of course, a lot of very meaningful professions, like firefighter, police officer, veterinarian, social worker and the military. But there are others.

To make it easier for young job seekers, I’ve compiled a list of the very best jobs – if you can get them.

10. A TV executive in charge of programming for a major network. You can tell from watching, they don’t care what they put on the air anymore; in fact, once you develop a hit show, you can keep airing it over and over. Heck, you can do the same thing with shows that aren’t hits.

9. Star of your own reality TV show. Why not you? What did the Kardashians or those people who buy storage units ever do to deserve their own show? Of course, you might need a catchy nickname like Honey Boo Boo or Big Hoss.

8. Book critic. Someone actually pays you to read a book. They probably buy the book for you, too.

7. Movie critic. This is even easier than book critic since you don’t have to read anything, unless it’s a foreign movie. That’s great, too, since most people don’t go to foreign movies anyway so you can pretty much say whatever you want and no one will really know the difference.

6. Host of a sports radio show. You talk about sports all day. When someone calls and disagrees with you, you tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about and hang up on them.

5. Radio talk show host. Even better, because you get to talk about anything you want and still hang up on people.

4. Vanna White’s job on “Wheel of Fortune.” How difficult is it to turn a card with a letter on it, especially after it lights up? Ms. White has been doing this for more than 30 years, which should tell you something.

3. Model on “The Price is Right.” How tiring is it to point at a new car or wave at a cheering crowd while sitting in a sailboat?

2. The lady who does the lottery drawing on Saturday night. This also falls into the Vanna White category, except you only have to do it once a week for about 90 seconds rather than every night for half an hour. The pay probably isn’t as good, but it’s not like you have to think up the numbers yourself.

1. Congress. This has to be the greatest job in the history of mankind. Except at election time, most people don’t have a clue what you’re doing. If you don’t do something you promised to do, just blame the other party. According to U.S. Government Info, the perks are almost criminal: stay in office five years and get fully vested in insurance benefits; qualify for a pension at the age of 50; buy stock based on inside information, which is illegal for everyone else; take free vacations around the world; and no matter what tragedy hits the country, nothing can affect your benefits. Like the Washington Monument, this last one is set in stone.

Best of all, by law, you get to set your own salary, which is guaranteed to increase every year from its current rate of $174,000 a year.